Multi-County Juvenile system looks to downsize

Monday

As fewer youths are being detained, especially from Stark County, the agency is considering closing facilities.

About 15 years ago budget woes forced the Multi-County Juvenile Attention System to close wings and lay off about 12 people.

Now Multi-County is doing it again — but not due to a lack of funding.

This time it's a marked decline in the number of juveniles in the system that is causing it to take another look at its programs.

This year the system's average daily population of juvenile youths is just over half of its 141-bed capacity.

Stark County, for example, is on pace to use the least percentage of the system's jail bed nights in the last 15 years. Stark has used about 47 percent of the system's jail bed nights so far this year, according to Multi-County figures, much less than the 62 percent it averaged the prior five years.

As a result of the diminished usage, Multi-County's Board of Trustees in October closed a 16-bed Residential Center in Rogers, which often had only eight to 10 children, and a nine-bed Residential Treatment Center wing, one of three at its campus on Faircrest Street SW in Canton Township. The system eliminated about 15 positions but offered jobs elsewhere in the system to affected employees, said Superintendent David Clay Riker.

Multi-County was founded in 1970 and employs about 150 at four detention facilities in Stark, Columbiana, Wayne and Tuscarawas counties with a total of 94 beds. With the closures, the system has two less restrictive group home wings with 18 beds at Faircrest in Canton Township and a 10-bed group home for girls in New Philadelphia.

The system also has a state-funded 24-bed facility at Faircrest for felony juvenile offenders.

Riker said Multi-County's executive committee will meet Friday to discuss further downsizing and evolving programs, without layoffs if possible.

The board has approved a 2019 budget that anticipates a reduction in spending by $866,470, to $10.9 million.

Stark County will not realize savings from this year's reduced usage until the 2020 Multi-County budget. Stark's Multi-County contribution for 2019 was based on a five-year average of usage from 2013 to 2017. But because Stark County's usage of jail bed days decreased from 63.3 percent in 2016 to 56.4 percent in 2017 and budget cuts, Stark County's 2019 Multi-County contribution will decrease to $4.18 million.

"You're going to start seeing a nosedive in our contribution," said Stark County Commissioner Bill Smith, a member of Multi-County's board of trustees who advocates setting savings aside to fund programs that help serve teens' needs. He anticipates cuts that could save another $1.3 million a year.

"In my estimation, there will be another facility that will have to be closed in ’19," he said.

Fewer detained

From 2015 to 2017, the number of children directed to Multi-County detention, not including the state-funded program, from Stark County Family Court dropped by more than 23 percent to 1,529. The number of children directed to the treatment facilities fell nearly 40 percent from 62 to 38.

Stark County Family Court Judge Jim James said juvenile crime is down and the philosophy of what is effective juvenile justice has changed since he became a judge in 1999.

In the late 1990s, he said, the system sought to be "heavy handed" on juvenile offenders, with less regard for individual circumstances.

Over time, then-court administrator Rick DeHeer, who retired in 2016, said he worked to expand the court's pre-trial office, which increasingly monitored children between arrest and trials. Meanwhile, James said, the Family Court judges' mindset shifted around 2006.

Criminologists' research, especially that of a University of Cincinnati professor who advised the court, found tough sentences in juvenile detention that were intended to scare juvenile offenders from a life of crime had the opposite effect. By placing teens who may have been less at risk to offend again with high-risk teens, the teens were more likely to become hardened criminals.

New approaches

The focus shifted, the judge said, as the state ramped up funding through its RECLAIM grants for rehabilitation programs with minimal confinement.

Stark County now receives roughly $1.7 million a year from the state's $30.6 million RECLAIM grants. The fewer children Family Court sends to the state juvenile prison system, the more grant funding the county gets.

In December 2017, the state approved Stark County's participation in the Justice Detention Alternatives Initiative, a program conceived by a national nonprofit group. Stark is one of about a dozen counties to adopt JDAI, which seeks to rehabilitate children without detention and it prescribes a sophisticated collection of data to monitor the effectiveness of its programs. Diane Wilson, the Stark County Family Court administrator, said data is assessed on a daily basis.

This summer, the Stark County Family Court revamped its staffing of 63. In addition to 17 probation officers, it now has three intake directors, three pre-trial officers and three diversion officers, who assess which programs might best suit offenders.

"Basically what we're looking at is individualized treatment plans for all the kids we're monitoring," James said. He said he looks at the offense, what's happening at home and what support system is available to the child. Often, he said, "putting them in detention is a sure way to set them back."

But for community safety "there absolutely has to be some ability to detain youth in Stark County, so we have no vision that detention will go away, although our hope is we're putting the right kids in there," he said. "You don't want to dump a younger kid with a 17-year-old, 18-year-old, who's been on the street. That's a recipe for disaster."

Smith said the court may treat two boys who commit the same theft differently: A boy who did it as a prank may be sent to a diversionary program, where he remains in his home but is monitored by a probation officer; but a boy who committed the theft and beat a family member could be held in a detention facility.

"Their theory is to keep that child out of (detention)," Smith said. "Treat him. Get his wheels on the rails again, and get him back on track so he will be a productive citizen in our community."

Ryan Gies, the deputy director of parole, courts and community for the Ohio Department of Youth Services, said the shift in policies has helped the state reduce the size of its juvenile prison from about 1,800 felony juvenile offenders in nine facilities eight years ago to fewer than 550 in three facilities today.

Stark County sent three juvenile felony offenders into the state's juvenile prison system this year. In 2011, it was 23, said James. But, the number of girls and younger children committing serious crimes has increased.

The Stark County Family Court said the number of children it referred to detention decreased each quarter this year.

If current trends continue, Smith said "where I think you'll see the improvement for years to come is out on Route 62 in the adult jail."

Reach Repository writer Robert Wang at (330) 580-8327 or robert.wang@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @rwangREP.

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